


Those You've Died For

by Brosedshield



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Season/Series 01, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 04:46:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/618231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brosedshield/pseuds/Brosedshield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You lost evening for Auntie. And now she's almost gone. (Chin Ho Kelly's headspace in S1.20)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those You've Died For

In a way, you wish that Kono had never known. She’s stuck with you—as much as she could and still pass academy—the whole time and she carries her anger along her spine, in her face, in her heart, she lets it _burn_ in a way you never have.  
  
It’s hurts sometimes being next to that fire. Makes the rage you never look at smolder that much hotter in the hole where you store everything that hurts so it won’t burn those around you.  
  
Seeing Auntie again, looking at the sunken, pale face of this woman that you love—and who has not stopped sending you Christmas cards while the rest of the family treated you as worse than dead—hurts in a whole other way.  
  
When people talk about what family means to them—when fathers hide their murderer-sons, when parents pay ransom too early, because they care so much—you are always torn between hating them and knowing exactly how they feel. Anyone can say they would sacrifice anything for family, but you have watched your life burn down, your career fall apart, everything you cared about ripped away, because you _would_ do anything. And have.  
  
That sacrifice won’t even save Auntie in the end. Everything you lost earned her nothing but a few more years.  
  
You can’t help but think it would be better to let her go, let the past go, let the money go, let everyone live the lives they have—you have one now, because of 5-O—because the balanced that has been reached seems too precarious to breathe on, much less expose to the truth.  
  
You’ve known Uncle’s secret almost since the beginning and you kept it, because of family. You understand that he carries the guilt for your life falling apart, and that matters, it does.  
  
But you thought your family would believe you when you said you were innocent, because you are family too. And what can he possibly do to make up for the knowledge that you were wrong? That they don’t actually care.  
  
It’s good to see Auntie again before she’s gone, good to shake hands with Uncle—the family has been more inclined to spit on your hand than take it these last few years—but you dread the truth the way the islands fear the hurricane.  
  
You have a home now, among people who have made the same sacrifice for you that you did for this woman so long ago. They are home, and family, and everything you thought you had, and lost. But you can’t help thinking that you’ve lost family before, and this is going to be one hell of a storm.

**Author's Note:**

> This episode, along with the pilot, was one that made my heart jerk and me FEEL so deeply for the characters. Though I've stopped watching the show since, I still really like this moment. Originally posted [at LJ](http://brosedshield.livejournal.com/41320.html). 
> 
> Also, random thing I learned JUST THIS SECOND, apparently Hawaii isn't effected by hurricanes that often. Very cool to know. But they are actually called hurricanes, which is why I looked it up in the first place.


End file.
